Building Products in the AI Era: Is the PM Dead? ‘Taste' and ‘Editing' Are King! How Does Your ‘President's AI Toolbox' Play the New Rules?!
Shocking! AI is completely overturning how we build products! Used to write thick PRDs, now a single Prompt does the job? Is the bar for Product Managers higher or lower? In this world full of AI noise, how can your “President's AI Toolbox” become your “Taste Filter” and “Smart Editor”?!
In the AI era, the logic of product building has fundamentally changed! In the past, we started with requirements documents (PRDs) and broke them down layer by layer. Now? A single Prompt generates a prototype directly! **Prompts are replacing traditional PRDs, becoming the starting point for building products!** Microsoft teams now push projects not just with documents, but with prototypes and collections of prompts. The efficiency is like riding a rocket! Demo over Memo โ that's the rhythm of the new era!
But this doesn't mean Product Managers are useless; quite the opposite, the bar is higher! In a world where AI is madly generating ideas and prototypes, who does the filtering? Who does the editing? **”Taste” and “Editing Skills” have become unprecedentedly important!** You need “boundary-blurring” individuals who can move between product, design, and engineering, controlling direction as “taste decision-makers” and “core judges,” otherwise you risk creating “Frankenstein monster products” that are neither here nor there. Ideas used to be decided by the PM; now, to have decision-making power, it's not about the title, but about real capability!
Interestingly, the time from idea to Demo has shortened, but the time from Demo to launch has actually lengthened! The explosion in the supply of creative prototypes has raised the “basic level,” but also made “excellence” harder to achieve, increasing the barrier for large-scale launches. You can't chase every idea; you need to ensure your product stands out and isn't drowned in the noise. So, **when doing things from 0 to 1, don't rush to scale!** Solve the real problem first, then talk about scaling. The 0-1 phase is chaotic; direction can change anytime. Fixing the direction too early can trap you on a “local optimum hill,” only realizing you took the wrong path three years later!
When building AI products, you also need to be wary of misleading “metrics”! In the 0-1 phase, with few users, metrics like click-through rates and retention rates are simply “pseudo-accurate”! Don't be fooled by data that “looks professional”; **focus more on “qualitative feedback” and “real user actions”!** Truly good products often need to meet at least two of these three key turning points: **Technological Leap, User Behavior Change, and Business Model Change.** The explosion of AI capabilities is a tech leap, users getting used to AI is a behavior change, and future “pay-per-result” is a business model change. Grasping these points too early or too late results in the same outcome โ getting it wrong!
Finally, AI capabilities are improving so fast, how do individuals and organizations adapt? **”Instinctively using AI” is difficult because updating existing cognition is very hard!** What AI couldn't do a few months ago, it can do now. You need to overturn old impressions and re-understand it, which is counter-intuitive! Human habits (like work efficiency) are hard to change, and internal corporate transformation is a tough problem; you can't rush it. Future development won't happen simultaneously for everyone (or every team); even within the same company, some will be ahead, others still behind.
So, what does this mean for you, and for your “President's AI Toolbox” (VPS)?
Firstly, the “President's AI Toolbox” itself is a representative of AI-era products! It's not a static SaaS; it's a dynamic Agent based on Prompts and AI capabilities. Its value is precisely reflected in “taste” and “editing skills” โ helping you filter the most relevant information from a vast amount and using AI capabilities to edit and refine it into the most valuable insights! It is your “taste filter” and “smart editor”!
Secondly, using the “President's AI Toolbox” is itself a process of adapting to the AI rhythm, updating cognition, and changing work habits. It helps you overcome the barrier of “instinctively using AI,” allowing you to become one of those “uneven” individuals who are ahead of the curve!
Finally, the iteration and development of the “President's AI Toolbox” also follow the product logic of the AI era: from solving the most core problems for presidents โ “information overload, inefficient decision-making” (solving the problem in the 0-1 phase) โ to continuously iterating and optimizing “taste” and “editing” capabilities (raising the bar for excellence), and then exploring new user behaviors and business models (grasping key turning points).
Building products in the AI era is no longer about stacking features; it's about building “taste” and “editing” capabilities, solving real problems, grasping turning points, and helping users adapt to this rapidly changing world. The “President's AI Toolbox” is both a practitioner and enabler of this new paradigm!
